The Art of You Part 7

Inspiration for “Jack Harrington” Borrowed from Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/HughJackman

Another couple of days passed before I dared leave the bed again. I was bombarded with terrible headaches that made me feel sick to my stomach and more sensitive to light. Jack kept the lights low and the drapes drawn against the beauty that waited for them outside. I told him to get out of the hotel and enjoy himself, but he refused. I often wondered if caring for me was replacing being able to care for his wife. A ridiculous notion, I know. But he never left and was always there to bring me water and little bits of food.

Painkillers were given out like candy for the headaches and while nothing really took the pain away, it made it manageable. The effects of the sleeping meds stopped working so well and I began to have strange dreams and insomnia often. I felt strange sensations like bugs were crawling over my body making me itch and need to walk around and even shower several times a day. It was miserable, to say the least.

It was Thursday morning. I woke up and Jack was there smiling at me telling me to get up and about. We were going to the Pancake House for breakfast. I tried to object, but he halted me, not taking ‘no’ for an answer.

I took the time to look presentable, kind of halfway doing my makeup in the beloved 50s look. Jeans and a white tank top won out and I slipped my feet into my little white tennis shoes. I decided to tie a red bandana in my hair that covered the back of my head and tied at my crown.

Making my appearance in the front room of the suite, I saw a wheelchair waiting for me, sitting empty and lonesome, the foot rests down and ready. Slowly, I back away.

“No way,” I said shaking my head slightly. “I’m not going in that!”

Jack laughed. “Come on, Ruby. It’s the only way to make sure you stay upright!”

“No. Not going to do it. I will do it on my own, or not at all,” I argued.

“For the love! You are so stubborn! Fine. Have it your way then,” he said throwing up his hands in the air and moving the wheelchair into a corner.

“Thank you,” I breathed.

Grabbing my backpack with my camera in it, I started out the door. The dizziness was trying to grab at me and I kept talking to myself and telling it to knock it off already. I was about four slow paces out the door and Jack swooped me up in his arms.

Shocked, I squealed and struggled to get back down on my own feet.

“Nope, I can be just as stubborn. So if you aren’t going to sit in the chair, I am responsible for making sure you don’t fall down. That means I carry you everywhere you need to go today,” he chuckled.

“I will break your back! I’m too heavy!” I countered.

“I think my superhero arms will do fine. You are not heavy in the slightest so be quiet.”

People on our way out to the car stared, their heads rotating as we walked by.

“Everyone is staring,” I whispered.

“I know. Get used to it,” he smiled in response. “Guess you should have taken the chair then, huh?”

I groaned in embarrassment, but inside I was cheering. Who could say that the very handsome Jack Harrington carried them in his delightfully strong arms? Very few, I was sure.

This fantastical world that had spun around me began to feel comfortable. I cared for Jack, not because he was my angel in all this, but because he was a good person inside. He genuinely cared. He had seen me at my worst and he never relented.

The Pancake House was busy for a Thursday morning. We got seated promptly, but waited a while for our waitress to be free enough to make it over. We sat in our booth, the kids on one side of the table and Jack seated beside me on the other. It felt strange and natural at the same time. It was like a fairy tale that had come in and taken over my pathetic life and it made me feel whole again. He made me feel whole.

Finally we ordered and sat there joking around with each other and deciding what we would brave next. The food arrived in fairly good time and we dug in to the pancakes with butter and syrup, the crispy bacon and golden hash browns. It was the first real food in a week and I realized how I had missed the taste of all of it.

Jack’s phone rang. He stared at it a moment before answering.

“Jack,” he said in greeting.

I could hear the tone of the voice coming out of the speaker and into Jack’s ear. It sounded monotone and hushed a little.

“I see. What time?”

More hushed talking and I could hear him swallow and sniff.

“Thank you,” he replied and hung up the phone. “Excuse me, please.”

We all sat quiet as he headed for the restrooms. My heart sat high in my throat and my stomach turned. I wondered if it was the moment I had been dreading all this time.

Jack’s son excused himself and went to find his dad. I thought that both kids probably already understood.

When they returned to the table some time later, I could tell they had both shed tears. Their eyes were glossy and puffy with red rings defining their sorrow.

“She’s gone,” he said low. “She slipped away peacefully about an hour ago.”

I sat there numb. We had been seated about an hour before. Had she felt his happiness and let go when she knew he would be okay?

“I’m so sorry,” I said and patted his hand, fighting the tears of my own.

He sniffed again and ran his hand beneath his nose. “We all knew it was coming. We all said our goodbyes and we all knew she would be gone when we got back. That was the deal,” he rationalized.

The daughter folded her arms on the table and her head sunk down onto them where her shoulders shook with the force of her sorrow.

“We will be fine, guys. This was how she wanted it to go, remember?” Jack said with emotion thick in his voice.

Silent tears weaved their way down the boy’s face and I had to wipe a few of my own away. The wound from burying my own spouse was reopened and I knew the turmoil they were all feeling.

“Consequently, we will head back home tomorrow for the funeral,” he announced and then he looked to me. “I will drive you back home so I know you aren’t driving on the roads in your condition. Davis will follow and we will catch our plane out of Boise.”

I shook my head. “That’s not necessary, Jack. I will be fine.” I knew it was a lie, but the last thing I wanted was to keep him from doing what he needed to. “It’s a long drive down to a not so glamorous place,” I laughed weakly.

I felt embarrassed just at the thought of him seeing where I lived, in a run down little cottage that was the better part of 100 years old. I’d had neither the money nor the ambition to restore it. I could feel a sense of panic rising in me.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Ruby. You are not driving home. You can’t exactly leave your car here and have Davis get it home for you later. You can’t exactly stay here alone and unattended either. Just please lower your guard for one minute and realize that I will win. I will always win,” he said looking me in the eye.

I closed my eyes and sighed. Lovely.

The world I had started to love, the one that was most unexpected but comfortable, all crumbled down around me. It was all a charade. None of it was real. Things were so amazing that I had almost forgotten about the wife half the world away. Who was I kidding? These kinds of stories only happened in books and movies. In real life, they just tease you and then disintegrate back into the nothingness from where it came. I would not only mourn the loss of my husband for years to come, but I would also mourn the loss of the man who taught me that there was more to life than tears.

I was quiet the rest of the day in anticipation of going back home. I missed my boys terribly but I knew I would miss Jack just as much. Perhaps he would write or email. Perhaps he might call on occasion. Given his status in life, I doubted it. I might be on his mind for a few weeks and then life would take over and I would disappear into the archives of his mind.

The Art of You Part 6

Loneliness happens.

 

 

 

 

 

I heard him swallow hard in the silence of the bedroom. The tears were just pushing behind my eyes until it hurt. Why wasn’t he leaving?

“I’m losing my wife,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “There aren’t many people who understand what that feels like.”

My heart lurched in my chest and I rolled over to face him. “I’m so sorry…”

“Is it true? That you never get over something like this?” His eyes were pleading with me to tell him otherwise.

I sighed. “Some days are better than others, I suppose. You see, my husband died unexpectedly. I never got to tell him goodbye and I think there has just been no closure for me. I holed up for a long time, living on what we had left. I found it hard to function and think straight. I stopped taking pictures because that magic had left and the world was just ordinary and ugly. But it’s funny how life happens. I came up here to capture some shots to pay my mortgage and I have spent my time so far revisiting places I had gone with him and reliving memories that I could never experience again. The loneliness I have felt at times here is crushing. But you know, spending the little bit of time with you has shown me that life is still here, but it isn’t waiting for me to make up my mind.” I paused. ” So if she’s dying, why are you here without her?”

He looked like he was trying to gather himself up. “We are here at her request. To live life for her in her final days. I wanted to be there to hold her hand when she slips away, but that was my wish…not hers. I chose a place that was small and remote, where I had less of a chance of paparazzi showing up, and where it would be relaxed and low-key. And then I met you. The fire in you has shown me there is more to life than this blackness I feel. But I can’t seem to escape it.”

My dream flooded my head as he mentioned escaping the darkness. I remembered how no matter where we went, it always found us and destroyed everything in our path. I heard a laugh come out of me before I meant for it to. Jack’s head snapped up, sending me a rude look.

“I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean to laugh out loud…and I wasn’t laughing at you. It’s just that I have been running from the darkness too. For a long time. It-well, it always finds me and I don’t know how to make it leave me alone. I don’t have any answers for you, but it seems we are more alike than we ever knew,” I smiled, reaching out my hand to pat his.

I thought he would cry or let go of even one tear, but he didn’t. He merely got up from the chair beside the bed and left the room. I was so emotionally spent at that point that the tears had subsided and I felt fast asleep.

I couldn’t tell where I was. The ground was cold, it was dark out, and all I could do was feel my way along a brick wall. A voice came to me. It was shouting for help. I kept inching my way along the wall in the dark hearing the voice grow louder. I recognized the voice and I stopped to listen more intently. I shouted back, “Jack!” There were more pleas for help that came through that wall. I felt the panic and I felt like jelly, as though I couldn’t move very well. I asked him where the door was. It was like he couldn’t hear me.

Suddenly, a bright light seared my eyes and there was my husband, standing before me. His face held such adoration and love in it for me. I tried to hold him, to feel him again but I couldn’t move at all.

“Live for me, Ruby. I want us to sit and talk of your adventures one day. You are breaking my heart as I watch you give up. For me, please live your life!” he said and pointed to something behind me. “When you need me, I will show you the way.”

I turned my head to see a door in the wall. Then it all went dark again but I knew my destination. I had to see if that door led me to Jack.

Commotion woke me and I heard many different voices beyond the bedroom. Tidbits of my dream still floated in my mind. He had come to see me! It had been the first time since his death that I had seen him and he looked so handsome and youthful. I closed my eyes, willing the dream to continue, but it did not. But I could still hear him tell me to live life for him. That was the wish of Jack’s wife too, that he lived life for her. Was it the way of it then? That they will live on through us? If we sulk about in the darkness and always try to run from it, they can’t live on. But if we make it full and happy, they can still feel that energy and it makes them happy.

I groaned, disgusted with myself a little. It was just a dream.

There was laughter in the other room. Jack’s laughter. It sounded different somehow. Maybe a little less burdened?

I gasped when the door opened and he stepped inside.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Good. I’m going to step out for a bit with the kids. They have missed me and are tired of Davis,” he chuckled, his dark eyes alight with mischief.

“Okay…” I said and it came out a garbled mess of sounds. Clearing my throat and plastering a smile on my face I added, “Good.”

“Are you okay?” he asked casting me a sideways glance.

“I’m fine.”

“If you need anything, here is my cell number. Call me right away,” he ordered and dropped the paper to the bedside table. Then, he was gone.

It was a crazy few seconds while I computed to myself that I was once again alone. Where I had begun feeling comfortable, I realized that I was still going at this all by myself. I had a sudden yearn to see my kids. I missed them. Seeing Jack with his kids and hearing them laughing made me jealous, just a little. I had left mine behind while I went out to take photos for a week. Granted, they were plenty old enough to take care of themselves, but I never should have left them.

And then I had another thought…since I lost him, I don’t really think I had been present with my kids. I was always hiding behind sorrow and living in the shadows. My actions had robbed them of a mother and I suddenly felt very guilty. I needed to go home.

I sat up slowly and climbed out of bed, a slight feeling of vertigo washing over me as I moved. After poking around briefly, I found my bag. The one that had been in my apartment. Puzzled, I bent to grab it when Jack blew back in the door. I froze and just stared at him.

“What are you doing?” he asked, breathless.

“Well, I decided I’m going home,” I replied standing up again. My palms began to sweat and I started feeling rather green in the gills. “What are you doing here? I thought you were headed out?”

I feared my voice sounded needy in a way, but he just blinked his eyes in disbelief. “I- My sunglasses. I left them on the table just there,” he said. “You can’t go yet. You are not fit to drive at all, Ruby. Let’s go tuck you back in so you can rest.”

I turned around again to take my bag and the lousy floor started to tilt beneath my feet, the room swirled about me and I fell to my knees, my hands bracing me against the movement.

Jack was by my side in a flash. “You okay?” he was asking me.

It sounded like he was talking to me through a door. And then it happened. I threw up all over the floor. I wished the floor would open up and swallow me whole. I wished at that moment that I would disappear and he would never see me again.

“Oh snap,” I groaned and the tears just fell. Tears of shame and embarrassment, not tears of grief or sorrow. “I’m so sorry.”

Jack just lifted me in his arms and carried me back to the bed. He brought me some water to wash away the taste of vomit from my mouth and handed me a pill from a bottle by the bed.

“This should make you feel a little better,” he smiled and smoothed the sweaty hair from my forehead. “It is I that am sorry, Ruby. But I think the clouds are coming on and we will just move our festivities inside for the day. Make it a movie day.”

I shook my head to the negative and my stomach began to lurch again. “You have fun things to go do, Jack. Take those kids out there and enjoy it!”

“We have all the time in the world. A few more days won’t hurt.”

“Don’t shut yourselves in because of me. Go! Have fun!” I tried to shout.

“But you are a part of our lives right now. I can’t just leave you when it was my car that brought you here…and not in a good way. You are more important than that.”

“I am just baggage. You have plenty already on your plate. You don’t need more,” I said slurring my words as the pill began to work.

“Good night, Ruby,” I heard him say before I succumbed.

Lessons from Death

My heart goes out to all those families in Connecticut. I know how it is to lose something very precious in your life, to mourn and grieve, to be angry. I have learned some very special lessons this week through my own personal tragedy that also happened on 12.12.12.

My daughter-in-law was 21 weeks pregnant when her water suddenly broke out of the blue. We were terrified for her and our son. They were able to stop her labor with medications and place her on bed rest in hopes she could carry this strong little boy for three more weeks.

She was 22 weeks and three days when her labor started again, unable to be stopped. This was on 12.12.12. Our little grandson was born at 5:17pm and tried desperately to take his first breaths, but to no avail. There was no way to save him.

Yesterday, we attended a service to lay his little body to rest, to give us closure and to tell him good-bye ourselves. Our son and daughter-in-law were so strong where I was so weak. I watched them from time to time, their expressions and their silent tears. They held hands, clinging to each other in this time of crisis. I tried my best to draw strength from them but I dried my own tears many times throughout the day. While I was in front of them, I swallowed my grief as I longed to hold that little boy in my arms, and lent them what support I possibly could.

My father-in-law said a very touching prayer, barely able to contain the tears that begged to spill forth. He choked his way through and I could feel such love from this man. He is a great example and father, not to mention an amazing grandfather. He taught me that it is okay to grieve, that everyone in that room felt the same as I did. It was okay.

A man spoke to us and told us what a strong spirit this little one had. He taught me to extend my faith and feel this young baby’s presence around me. Although I never “knew” him, I still feel a bond with him. 

Taking this baby to the cemetery made me think heavily upon my own family. Having a large one between my husband and I, reflected on what I would change if I had that opportunity. My family is the most important thing to me and yet, I found I have regrets. Many of them. Knowing I will never see this child in this lifetime, I thought of how incredibly lucky I am to have such a clan of healthy and happy people. To place any of them into the ground would devastate me, probably even more so than our grand baby did for I have a relationship with them all in some capacity.

I have taken so much for granted all of my life. Yesterday’s events made me all the more pressed to improve relations with those that have become strained, to spend more quality time with my children at home, and to appreciate them for every gift they present to me through life.

I can never let those feelings fade. This circumstance has left me feeling raw and vulnerable. I pray I never heal and forget, but that I take my wounds and cover them with the love and support of my family that is here with me. To use it as an amplifier, not a reason to cry. I know that little boy would not want me to be sad for him, although that doesn’t always help. But to take that severe sorrow and turn it to love and tolerance within our family would make him proud.